Thursday, August 16, 2012

Director Spotlight #9.4: David Cronenberg's Rabid

Every
month, Director Spotlight takes a look at an auteur, shines some light
on a few items in the director’s body of work, points out what makes them an
artist, and shows why some of their films work and some don’t. August’s
director is body horror auteur David Cronenberg.

Grade: 78 (B+)

Shivers was
controversial, hated by many, and highly successful for a low-budget Canadian
horror film, so David Cronenberg’s next effort had a larger budget and less
hesitancy from Canadian studio Cinepix. 1977’s Rabid shows a continuation and expansion of many of the key
obsessions of Cronenberg’s filmography. That it’s ultimately less successful
and memorable than Shivers is not
dishonorable- that’s a rather high standard to live up to for your second
professional film- and Rabid is still
an essential early work in Cronenberg’s oeuvre.

Rose (Marilyn Chambers) is in a motorcycle accident with her
boyfriend; he’s mostly fine, but she’s horrifically injured. She’s too far away
from a hospital to risk a trip, so she’s taken to a plastic surgery clinic run
by Dr. Dan Keloid (Howard Ryshpan), where she receives extensive skin grafts.
Months later, Rose awakes, but she’s developed a vaginal orifice under her
armpit which contains a phallic stinger. Rose develops a vampiric need to feed
off the blood of others with the stinger, which transforms the victims into
zombie-like creatures with behavior resembles those of animals with rabies,
causing the city to fall into mass chaos.

Rabid shares a lot
in common with Shivers: similar
concepts (sexual transformation), similar influences (Burroughs, Nabakov,
Romero), and a similarly chilly air. That said, it does show Cronenberg’s
advances as a filmmaker. Where Shivers was
occasionally slightly awkward and filled with moments of hesitancy, Rabid shows a director who’s much more
confident in what he’s doing. He expands in scope- where Shivers was a claustrophobic film largely contained in one large
building, the events of Rabid take
place over a sprawling Canadian city. His compositions are richer and more
dynamic- one scene in a porno theatre between Chambers and an unnamed patron is
particularly effective. Rabid also
shows an even greater command of suspense and of all-out horror- where
everything already seemed slightly off at the beginning of Shivers (purposefully, that is), Rabid’s opening on Rose’s motorcycle ride with her boyfriend feels
almost idyllic at first. We know something terrible is about to happen, but
there’s a slight sense of security until the accident does happen. And as for
the viscerally shocking moments: just watch the operating table scene.

Rabid also
features the first Cronenberg character worth caring about. Shivers didn’t particularly call for a strong
protagonist, but the presence of one in Rabid
gives it a stronger emotional core. Rose isn’t a particularly deep
character, but her emotional vulnerability gives her a draw that previous
characters didn’t have. Marilyn Chambers is most famous for her career in 1970s
pornography, most famously the crossover hit Behind the Green Door, but she shows some chops as a girl-next-door
whose innocence has been subverted into a sexually aggressive character. This
also provides a better defined psychological portrait of one of Cronenberg’s
conflicted protagonists- one whose extreme impulses overpower their reluctance
to go through with them. Sure, it would’ve been nice to see Cronenberg get a
chance to work with Sissy Spacek as he had originally wanted, but Chambers plays
that confusion and conflict very well, which is what keeps Rabid from being just a gussied-up version of Shivers.

Because while Rabid does
give Cronenberg another chance to throw around his body horror/disease
interests, Rabid doesn’t have the
same thematic strength of Shivers. There’s
more than a few nice touches: Cronenberg’s reimagining of the vampire as a more
biologically sexual, internal creature is fascinating, and he gets a lot of
mileage out of the government’s ineffective and often catastrophic reaction to
the problem (they shoot a mall Santa, for Christ’s sake!). But Chambers’
relative strength as a character highlights how thin everyone else is, and many
of the supporting roles aren’t active enough. And while Rabid shares Shivers’
conceptual brilliance, it does not share the earlier film’s conceptual clarity.
Where Shivers’ satirical edge was
sharp as a razor, Rabid’s isn’t
particularly well-defined, the plastic surgery bits mostly being a means to an
end. Sure, the idea of a new take on a vampire/zombie movie is already pretty
terrific in its own right, but the film doesn’t have the same lasting
significance as Cronenberg’s professional debut.

Still, a good movie is a good movie, and Rabid is still an important film for
Cronenberg. It’s the first with a strong character, it shows more assurance
behind the camera, and its devastating final shot is every bit as tragic as Shivers’ was chilling.